To kiss well one must kiss solely. No groping hands or stammering hearts. The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure. Passion is sweeter split strand by strand. Divided and re-divided like mercury then gathered up only at the last moment.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of focus and precision in intimate moments, highlighting the beauty of pure connection.
Jeanette Winterson's quote suggests that true passion in love comes from singular, intentional actions rather than chaotic or distracted behaviors. It conveys that a meaningful kiss should be free from distractions and fully present in the moment, allowing the participants to experience a deeper enjoyment and connection with each other, akin to a delicate and careful separation and reunion that enhances the overall pleasure.
In practice
In a wedding speech, one might quote this to highlight the beauty of love and intimacy.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness.
True love grows by sacrifice and the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.
Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love.
We're not called to be a tolerant nation. We're called to be a nation of love.
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.
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